The Tea History Collection at Banbury, England

Banbury in Oxfordshire England is hardly the place where one would expect to find a collection of Tea memorabilia. But this is exactly where I found myself a few weeks ago when I went to visit Denys Short OBE with some Italian customers who were visiting England. We visited the Tea History Collection (THC).

Denys is the son of an Indian Tea planter. Being born in India and growing up on tea plantations in Assam and East Africa, tea is very much in Deny’s heart. 

A year ago he collected memorabilia from a London tea trader. Instead of keeping the collection in his own garage Deny has created a purpose built area on his businesses site in Banbury to house and showcase the collection. 

For a Tea geek like me the THC offers a step back in time to explore the rich heritage of Tea. Our Italian customers were fascinated to see some of the items on display at the collection. From old tea chests to rare books like their Assam directories that date back to the the 1930s. 

One of the items that I have never seen anywhere else is some rare tea samples held in unique glass jars. 

We stopped to look at the collection and shot some videos on Sri Lanka teas.

Hit the  link here to see what we got up to at THC.